


A Renegade’s Redemption

by Sucker4TallDarkAndTerrifying



Series: Black Water Runs Deep [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Language, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Profanity, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but it does get better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29721609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sucker4TallDarkAndTerrifying/pseuds/Sucker4TallDarkAndTerrifying
Summary: Zabuza and Kisame created a (somewhat) lovable little murder-apprentice.In the wake of her love's death, Kaiyō is headed to Konoha, and she's going to make a few certain shinobi's lives veeery interesting once she gets there....(Yes, this is a re-write of my work Enter Kaiyō)Disclaimer: Suikuro Kaiyō is MY own original character/OC.All Naruto franchise characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
Relationships: Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Suikuro Kaiyō (OC) & Hoshigaki Kisame, Suikuro Kaiyō (OC) & Morino Ibiki, Suikuro Kaiyō (OC) & Yamanaka Inoichi, Suikuro Kaiyō (OC)/Momochi Zabuza
Series: Black Water Runs Deep [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2184345
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

She's four when the black-haired orphan boy a few years older and a few houses down from her slaughters over a hundred students in that year's graduating class.

She doesn't know what happened, only wonders now and then why she never sees him around their neighborhood anymore.

* * *

She's seven when she sees him again, and she knows _exactly_ who he is now — his name is still whispered through the halls of the Academy.

Except he doesn't look much like a demon to her — in fact, he looks scared as he flashes from rooftop to rooftop down her street, and in the distance behind him she can see a larger man giving chase.

"Hey!" She calls to him without thinking, yanking open the front door of her empty home.

His head turns as he lands across the street, and the sun glints off the metal of the hitai-ate he now wears.

She waves, and he flashes into her house without question, pulling the door closed behind him and pressing his back against it.

"Thanks," he whispers, breathing hard, and she nods and turns out the lights, looking out the window as the man in pursuit draws closer.

"Why is your sensei chasing you, Zabuza?"

"Because I pissed him off." He grins widely. "Is he gone?"

"Not yet." Her breath catches when the man lands on the roof across the street, and she holds it as he looks around, scowling.

A long moment later, he disappears in a swirl of mist, and she finally exhales.

"He's gone."

"Thanks," Zabuza says, standing up straight. “I owe you one.”

"Train with me?" she asks hopefully

The teachers at the Academy don't pay her much attention — as a descendant of immigrants she's a member of the lowest caste, a mutt, only good for future battlefield fodder and therefore not worth the time to educate properly.

Zabuza doesn't like it, but she's stubborn, giving him the biggest and saddest eyes she can manage, and he finally relents with a growl, agreeing to help her out whenever he can.

"What's your name, brat?"

She beams. "It's Kaiyō. My name is Kaiyō."

* * *

She's ten when she graduates third in her class from the Academy.

Zabuza and someone new — his friend, Kisame — take her out to dinner to celebrate, and the three of them sit around a fire on the beach as the sun drops below the horizon.

She likes Kisame — the sixteen-year old, already a veteran of war, laughs loudly and often because he makes a lot of jokes, and the blues of his skin and hair are fascinating to her.

He leans over and ducks his head, and she reaches up to run her hand through the deep blue spikes.

"It's so soft!" she exclaims, surprised.

"That's the _only_ thing about me that's soft, little fish," he says, winking at her and flashing his pointed teeth again in a wide grin.

“I got you something.” Zabuza pulls an adorably small scroll from his pocket and passes it over to her. “Open.”

She eagerly unfurls the slip of paper, but before she can read the symbols on it he touches the tip of his index finger to the center, and the seal is released with a puff of smoke to reveal a tanto knife slightly larger than a kunai.

“You’ll grow into it,” he says as she curls her fingers around the handle and slides it out of the sheath before standing up to take a few practice slashes at the air. “And it’ll serve you for a long time, if you take care of it.”

“I will,” she promises immediately, sheathing the blade and settling cross-legged onto the sand once more, and she leans over and rests her shoulder against his arm for a moment. “Thank you.”

He only grunts in response, and she rolls her eyes with a smile before sitting up straight again.

* * *

Her jonin sensei all but ignores her in favor of the two higher-class genin on her team, and it's after a couple of months that she finally breaks down and asks Zabuza to train with her again.

To her surprise and delight, Kisame joins him often, even steps in to help her on his own.

He's brutal, but fair — he’ll beat her black and blue, but afterward he’ll pull her to her feet and ruffle her hair with words of praise for her progress.

And his lessons aren’t just for the battlefield.

“Life is short, little fish, and a shinobi’s even more so.” He settles into his fighting stance, and she mirrors the pose. 

“You’re a ninja now, so you must take your joy where you can, whether it be in the taste of your food, the thrill of a fight, the feel of sunshine on your skin, or a blade in your hands and the power in your body.” He lunges for her, swinging an open hand at her head, and she ducks, sidestepping him. 

“Nothing is promised to us — not the next sunrise or even the sunset of any day we’re given, so we must make the most of every moment we breathe. Do you hear me, little fish?”

She hears him. Her joy comes from training, from fighting: she revels in the sensations of the blood rushing through her veins, the adrenaline in her muscles, and the raw, crackling energy of the chakra she wields.

And it’s months later, after a particularly grueling training session that ends with black spots dancing in her vision and more than likely a mild concussion, that the words “That fucking _hurt_ , Kisame-nii-sama” tumble out of her mouth as she sits in a daze while he stitches the gash beneath her right eye.

He looks at her for a long moment, holding her face in his hand, then shakes his head with a small smile before finishing up the sutures.

“Only for you, little fish... only for you.”

* * *

She's twelve, and her sensei will not recommend her for the Chunin Exams, even though her arsenal of Water-Style ninjutsu is more than formidable for her age, and thanks to Kisame she can use two Earth-Style jutsu as well.

"Then get one of them to recommend you," her sensei snarls, drawing back a fist, and as she dodges the blow she understands that he truly does hate her.

She watches instead as her two team-mates are assigned to other squads to meet the enrollment requirements.

In response, she starts taking more and more difficult missions, and completing them, and though Zabuza and Kisame are both ANBU as well as apprenticed to Swordsmen of the Mist, she starts finding herself assigned as the third member of their squad more and more often.

And it’s the two of them that stand at her side as she looks down on the bloody body of the ninja in front of them: her first kill.

“It gets easier, little fish.” Kisame ruffles her hair before curling an arm around her shoulders and giving her a gentle shake. “You’re a true shinobi now.”

Zabuza only growls at her to clean her knife, and numbly, she obeys, wiping the blade against her pants at her thigh until the blood is completely removed.

But later, much later, when Kisame’s snoring softly beside the fire and she’s sitting with her arms around her knees as she stares into the flames, Zabuza moves to sit next to her and starts speaking quietly in his rough voice.

“Kisame’s right. It gets easier.”

“I know,” she whispers. But she can still hear the choked gurgling of the man drowning in his own blood above the crackling of the fire.

“He would’ve done the same to you, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“... You’ll be alright.”

She doesn’t answer, only leans into him and rests her head on his shoulder, and he allows the contact for several moments longer than his usual level of tolerance permits, before he braces a hand on the ground and gets to his feet.

“Get some sleep.”

She stretches out, her back against Kisame’s, and her eyes follow Zabuza as he prowls the edges of their camp, until the flickering shadows give way to the black of unconsciousness.

* * *

On her thirteenth birthday, Kisame gifts her a wakizashi with a handle wrapped in the exact same shade of blue as her eyes, and she becomes the only genin in Kiri's history to officially join its ANBU ranks.

Her friends were right: killing _has_ gotten easier. And it’s turned out that she’s pretty damned good at it.

* * *

She's fourteen when Kumo puts her in their village's Bingo-Book with a fancy new title: _Kirigakure no Yōkai_ , and Zabuza pitches a rather uncharacteristic fit at the fact that her bounty is higher than his while Kisame roars with laughter.

* * *

She's fifteen when she's added to Iwa's and Konoha's books at the same time.

* * *

She's sixteen when the Mizukage Yagura informs her that he's changing her official rank to chunin, then dismisses her in the next breath.

Zabuza muses darkly beside her hospital bed that night that perhaps it's time for a regime change.

She agrees.

* * *

She's seventeen when her name goes into Kirigakure's Bingo Book, after she flees her country in the dead of night at her best friend’s side, along with an orphan and a handful of others, a flood of hunter-nin on their group’s heels.

* * *

She's nineteen when she hears that her blue-skinned nii-sama has left Kiri in a similar fashion, having assassinated the Land of Water’s daimyo and landing him in the book with an S-rank and a bounty to match.

She holds out hope at first that he’ll seek them out, that her little family will be together once more, but the weeks turn into months, and finally she accepts that she may very well never see Kisame again.

* * *

She’s twenty when she’s staring Zabuza in the face one evening during a spar as he’s got her pinned to the ground, and something _changes_ between them, something that later they’ll wonder if they ever really had a chance to avoid, or if maybe it was always supposed to be this way, because when his savage brown-eyed gaze drops from her eyes to her lips, instead of grabbing him by the shirt and jerking her hips up to throw him over her head, she slips her arms around his neck and does the unthinkable: she surrenders.

As it turns out, falling in love is something they’ve been doing for years.

* * *

She's twenty-three when her heart shatters in her chest as she stands over two graves in the Land of Waves, her tanto in one hand and her other palm flattened against Kubikiribōchō's broad blade as the tears stream down her face.

And she realizes that she's alone in the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Kaiyō lay on her back between the two graves, staring up at the night sky and trying to think through the pain.

_What to do?_

She didn’t have a purpose, not anymore. The rebellion had always been Zabuza’s dream, not hers. Murdering Yagura, sure, that much she had been behind from the get-go, but beyond that she’d never had a real endgame of her own. She’d merely been content to continue supporting her love, and their usual business of surviving from one day to the next.

So. 

What to do.

The hunter-nin would be coming soon; that much was certain after what she had learned about the publicity of Zabuza’s death. Which meant, at the very least, she needed to get out of the Land of Waves.

But where could she go?

 _Kisame_ , whispered that tiny part of her that still held affection for him, but the much larger and rational portion of her brain had her shaking her head. It had been over four years since her big brother had left Kiri, and Kaiyō had less than nothing to go on to even make an attempt at finding him now.

Not to mention the fact that if Kisame had _wanted_ a reunion, he would have made it happen already.

Hell, by this point her big brother could be dead and buried just like her love beside her, and the sudden constriction in the center of her chest at _that_ thought made Kaiyō gasp out loud as the tears started again.

She allowed herself a minute to calm back down before she sniffled and scrubbed her forearm across her face, then took a deep breath before sitting up.

_Right._

Priorities.

She needed a plan of action, because her self-preservation instincts were finally starting to kick in, and they were getting rather loud on the whole “hunter-nin enroute” front.

First things first would have to be money. Kaiyō had her share of their groups’ funds at the tree-house, and she was confident she could lay claim to Zabuza’s as well without much resistance. 

And anyone that wanted to argue could take it up with her blades.

Kaiyō got to her feet and brushed her fingertips over the flat of the broadsword’s blade one last time.

“Good-bye, my love… for now.”

* * *

Kaiyō crouched in a tree on the edge of the campsite, her chakra suppressed to nearly non-existent and her eyes on the sleeping, silver-haired shinobi as she walked her tantō steadily and silently through her fingers in the same manner that a civilian might fiddle with a pencil.

It would be easy for her to kill him.

One flick of her wrist could put the knife into the jounin's throat. 

So easy.

Kaiyō wanted to.

She wanted to send the tantō flying, the tip slicing through the man's jugular as the blade buried itself in his neck, and that would be the end of Zabuza’s killer: Kakashi the Copy-Ninja.

But.

Kaiyō had been on the run from Kiri for more than six years, and she hadn’t made it this far by being stupid. Now that she was on her own, she was an easier target for the hunter-nin, and killing a shinobi as famed across the five nations as the one currently in front of her would attract a _lot_ of attention.

Then again, if she killed the brats along with him, there wouldn’t be anyone to mark her as the culprit, in this halfway space between Wave and Konohagakure.

_Hmm._

She glanced at the black-haired boy keeping watch, before her gaze slid to the snoring blond, and finally the pink-haired girl.

The knife stilled in her fingers, and Kaiyō held it by the blade as she lightly tapped the handle against her lips, her brow furrowed as she considered the possibilities further.

Less than a minute could leave her with the lot of them bleeding out at her feet before she disappeared without a trace. That was what she was good at, what she was famous for. And that was what the heartbroken voice in her mind was howling for her to do: to fall upon them in silent fury and leave Konoha four shinobi short.

 _Or,_ piped up a smaller, more rational voice, albeit quietly, _I could follow them._

Konoha was a big village. Bigger than Kiri, certainly. Possibly even more powerful.

It was also the absolute last place the hunter-nin would think to look for her.

The Leaf might take her, if she offered to truly defect, to fight for them. Now that Zabuza was six feet under, Kaiyō was arguably the most deadly ninja that had defected from Kirigakure in the last decade, with the exception of Kisame.

She frowned, looking down at Kakashi again and weighing her options.

_Kill them?_

_Spare them?_

_Kill them…._

_… Spare them._

She flipped the tantō around in her hand and stole away through the trees.

* * *

Nine of the Leaf’s ANBU flashed down from the trees to surround Kaiyō when she approached Konoha’s main gate, and she raised her hands slowly above her head with her fingers splayed out, as far away from her many weapons as she could get them.

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” she said, keeping her voice steady and clear, inwardly pleased that they thought she was that much of a threat to warrant so many of Konoha’s finest.

“Then you won’t mind putting these on,” answered a monkey-masked ninja, holding up a pair of thick leather cuffs with a few links of chain between them.

Kaiyō raised her eyebrows with a faint smile. “Kinky. But what if I do mind?”

“We knock you out and put them on you anyway,” growled a different voice from behind the striped mask of what looked to be a cat with pointed ears.

“Hmm. Fair.” She shrugged one shoulder in acquiescence. “Alright, I’m going to lower my hands so you can put those on me.”

“Slowly,” the cat ordered, watching as she obeyed. “Now don’t move.”

The monkey passed the cuffs, and as the cat took a single step toward her, a wild half-thought flashed into her mine to twitch forward at him, just to see what he’d do, what the rest of them would do.

Probably kill her where she stood.

The cat ANBU took another step, reaching for her wrist.

Kaiyō wondered what he looked like beneath the mask, and when she raised her chin to get a look, she saw dark eyes flashing down at her.

“I told you not to move.”

“Oh, sorry.” She wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

One plate-gloved hand closed long fingers around her forearm, and the other slipped a cuff around one of her wrists.

Kaiyō twitched at him.

Instantly, her legs were swept from beneath her as he yanked her arm forward, and in a split-second she was flat on her face in the dirt, his hands pinning her wrists with a knee between her shoulder blades.

She laughed once in a loud bark, further sound cutting off when he applied more pressure with his knee, though her little body continued shaking as she giggled silently.

“You think this is funny?” The grip around her wrists tightened.

It was hilarious, actually, even if she wasn’t quite sure why. Either way, Kaiyō was done playing with them, at least for the moment — it was getting difficult to breathe with his knee on her spine, and if he squeezed her wrists any harder, they would break.

She went still, and after a long moment he settled back onto the balls of his feet and pulled her arms behind her, and another masked ninja slipped the restraints on.

The second the leather tightened against her skin, she felt her chakra suppress, and the cat stood and grabbed her by a bicep to pull her to her feet.

Kaiyō scowled when another ANBU wearing a mask with a beak held up a cloth sack — she hadn’t agreed to that.

“Knock it off.” He gave her a sharp shake. “You’re in no position to make threats.”

 _What?_ She wasn’t — _Ah, hell._ — and she dialed back the Killing Intent she’d unconsciously begun to emanate.

The sack went over her head.

* * *

Kaiyō was taken up _entirely_ too many stairs, and by they time they’d reached the top of whatever the fuck they were climbing, she’d considered tripping the cat-masked ninja a total of seven times, both casually and seriously.

There was a series of stop and go; she heard several doors being unlocked before she was walked through them, being stopped before each one as he brought her through the building, until she was stopped in place and stripped of her tantō, the wakizashi at the small of her back, and both of her holsters of kunai on her thigh, before being abruptly sat down in a cold metal chair, her bound wrists still behind her.

A tug at the links between the cuffs, and extra weight began to pull her hands down toward the floor.

They’d chained her in place, and she bit her lip to keep from laughing at the realization.

Why was it so funny to begin with? She wasn’t sure. Residual hysteria, maybe. Gods knew Kaiyō hadn’t been in her right mind for days by this point.

The door closed, and silence followed.

A minute passed.

And another.

She stayed utterly still, waiting silently, if not patiently. It was a mind game they were playing now, and Kaiyō intended to win.

* * *

Morino Ibiki closed the file on his desk and stood, heading down the hall to the main area of Torture and Interrogation.

The chuunin under his command snapped to attention the moment he entered the room.

“What’s the status of the newest intake?” he growled, his gloved hands in his pockets. His fingers were stiff today, shortening his temper even more than usual.

Mozuku answered from behind the huge, three-sided desk: “Intake was ten minutes ago. She’s been secured in room three for the last seven, and hasn’t moved a muscle since the door closed.”

Ibiki nodded and headed for the interrogation room holding his newest “guest”.

Looking through the one-way glass in the door, he watched the rogue Kiri-nin for another two minutes as she continued to sit, unmoving.

Briefly pondering the merits of kicking the metal door open — he’d done it before, knew it would slam open loudly enough to wake the dead — he decided against it and simply pushed his way into the room, noting the way her shoulders and neck stiffened at the new noises before he stepped up behind her and yanked the cloth sack from over her head.

She flinched, letting out a harsh curse, and Ibiki kept his expression neutral at the small victory as he moved slowly and deliberately into her line of sight.

“Well _fuck_ ,” she said cheerfully, and smiled widely at him. “I didn’t expect them to send in the boss. I’m flattered.”

“You know who I am.” It wasn’t a question; he knew his reputation was spread widely, as was hers.

Suikuro Kaiyō: _Kirigakure no Yōkai_ , the Phantom of the Hidden Mist.

“Hmm.” She appeared to think for a moment, studying him. “Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Then you know how this is going to go.”

She tipped her head to the side like a dog, her expression curious. “How what’s going to go, exactly? It’s not like I’ve been difficult.”

Apart from provoking the ANBU into pinning her, she was correct.

However, rogue ninja _never_ walked up to an enemy village’s gate and simply surrendered, as she had.

Not unless they had something up their sleeve, they didn’t.

Ibiki’s biggest problem was that the intel on her, as well as her ally, Momochi Zabuza, had dropped off a little over six years ago, just after they’d abandoned Kirigakure following a failed coup against the Mizukage.

Well, until earlier that morning, at least, when Kakashi had turned in his mission report detailing the latter’s demise in the Land of Waves, but absolutely _nowhere_ in that document had Suikuro been mentioned.

And Ibiki didn’t like that one bit.

“What do you want with Konoha.” _Might as well get straight to the point._

“Asylum would be nice.”

“Not happening.”

“And yet I feel as if that’s not your decision,” she answered, shrugging a shoulder and grinning at him again.

 _Obstinate._ She reminded him of Anko, and someone else…

It wasn’t Zabuza, even though she wore her hitai-ate in a mirror-image of the Demon, but it was someone just as dangerous, if not more so. That much was evidenced by the way those bright smiles of hers didn’t quite reach the blue eyes that were watching him just as intently as he was watching her.

No, he couldn’t quite pin it down in his mind, and that was enough to thoroughly annoy him, not that he let it show on his scarred face.

“It’s my decision to make it the Hokage’s decision, renegade,” he growled. “And you’ve gone after Yagura once already. How do we know you won’t make an attempt against our Hokage?”

Suikuro snorted, rolling her eyes. “Last time I checked your leader wasn’t a psychopathic fucking asshole. So unless that’s changed in the last few years, you’ve got nothing to worry about from me.”

“Is that so.”

“Look, I could be an asset to your village, that much you have to admit,” she continued, and unless he was mistaken, the thinnest thread of what sounded like desperation had entered her voice.

It was an opening, and Ibiki pounced. “Or I could bleed you out in the next three minutes and collect your bounty from Yagura within the week. Nobody would bat an eye.”

He sent a heavy flash of Killing Intent at her for good measure.

What he didn’t expect was for her to laugh, “You don’t scare _me_ ,” and push a wave of KI at him that actually blacked out his vision for a second, giving him a brief impression of an insane joy, along with a vision of his thick neck opening in a spray of blood, followed by the light of life fading from his black eyes.

Ibiki blinked — he was back in his interrogation room — and as those blue eyes in front of him went wide, he realized _exactly_ who else Suikuro reminded him: that utterly unhinged Killing Intent bringing the blue-skinned beast of a man directly to the front of his mind.

Hoshigaki _fucking_ Kisame.

* * *

 _Holy shit._ Kaiyō stared wide-eyed up at the scarred face of her interrogator.

She’d _actually_ managed to shake him.

Sure, it had been for less than a second, but she had definitely seen his face tighten after his eyes had widened a fraction, and then the scowl had settled back across his features.

Though judging from the open hostility rolling off him, he was _pissed_ as he glared down at her from across the table, and Kaiyō quickly dropped her gaze to his chest, shifting awkwardly in the chair.

There was a long, long pause, and then without another word he turned toward the door and pushed through it, leaving her alone again as it thudded closed behind him.

Kaiyō let her head fall back, letting out a frustrated growl and closing her eyes.

Maybe they’d decide she wasn’t worth the trouble and kill her.

In all honesty, she was alright with that, because it wasn’t as if she had anything tying her to the mortal coil any longer, and Konoha had been all but a last-ditch effort anyway.

Just as long as it was quick.

* * *

They left her alone for a while this time, and then the metal door swung open again.

Her interrogator was back, and behind him was another man with blond hair pulled into a long ponytail, dressed in standard Leaf shinobi attire, with a sleeveless red haori over his flak vest.

_Well, hello handsome._

She didn’t know who the new man _was_ though, and Kaiyō was curious but wary as she glanced from one to the other.

Neither of them said a word as the blond approached her with his hand outstretched, and her lip curled off her teeth as he settled his palm against her forehead — she despised strangers touching her, no matter how attractive they might be.

A jolt of chakra, and suddenly he was _there_ in her mind, and he began sifting through her thoughts and memories with no effort whatsoever.

“You sonofa - !”

Kaiyō snarl was cut short as the presence in her mind abruptly bore down on her, and she went limp in the chair as he knocked her out from within, her head lolling back on her spine.

* * *

Ibiki watched as Inoichi’s eyes closed, and the mind-walk began. He waited silently, flexing his gloved hands in his pockets to try and alleviate some of the pain.

Only a few minutes later it was done, and the blond shinobi looked somber as he pulled his hand away and guided Suikuro’s unconscious upper body forward to lay her head on the metal table in front of her, folding his arms after. “... Well then.”

Ibiki frowned. Seeing Inoichi unsettled was rare. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s telling the truth,” was the quiet response. “There’s nothing in there whatsoever that would indicate she’s got any ulterior motives — as far as she’s concerned we’ll either let her stay and use her, or we’ll kill her. And while she’d prefer the former, she really doesn’t care much either way.”

Ibiki’s fists tightened, and he ignored the additional flares of pain in his fingers as his leather gloves creaked in protest. “Then what’s she hiding?”

“Well, she had several opportunities to take out Kakashi and his team on their way here. And while she obviously elected not to take them, there’s still a huge amount of hostility there.”

“Enough to change her mind and actually go after him?” Ibiki was confident that Hatake could handle himself, but it was better to err on the side of caution.

“It’s hard to say. Inoichi reached up to run his hand through his fringe of blond hair and puffed out a sigh. “Jokes and antics aside, she’s all but _broken_ , Ibiki — her heart’s been in a million pieces ever since she found out about Zabuza. Not to mention,” he added, waving a hand toward the younger man, “You remind her of her brother, Kisame, which is almost just as painful for her.”

“That fucking menace is her _brother_?”

“Adoptive, not biological. They got close after she graduated from the Academy.” Inoichi frowned, looking down at Suikuro. “Her skill-level is the same as any of our elite jounin. She’s an expert assassin.”

“So what you’re saying is we could use her,” Ibiki growled.

“We could. Though of course the final say will be the Hokage’s.”

“Right.” Ibiki wasn’t sure he _wanted_ the question brought to the Sandaime’s attention, but unfortunately, the would-be defector is right: it’s not entirely up to him. “Well, thank you for coming.”

Inoichi inclined his head slightly. “Anytime.”

* * *

It was going to rain later, or tomorrow. The changes in atmospheric pressure were what had his hands acting up on him, Ibiki knew. And it was making his already foul mood downright murderous as he headed back to Torture and Interrogation with the Hokage’s verdict slamming around in his skull.

Not only was the rogue allowed to _stay_ , but she was officially Ibiki’s fucking responsibility.

And on top of that, the Sandaime wanted her for ANBU, in a minimum of six months’ time.

Fucking _ANBU_.

Not only welcoming her to the village, but offering access to its deepest secrets, its most clandestine missions, after a scant _six months_?

His jaw was clenched so tightly that the growl rising in the back of his throat didn’t make a sound, and Ibiki resisted the urge to open the doors of his department by putting his heel to them and taking them off their hinges.

* * *

Kaiyō regained consciousness slowly, and the first thing she saw after raising her head from the metal table was the scarred, scowling face of her interrogator as he sat across from her with his arms folded across his broad chest, leaned back in the chair.

She wondered if he ever smiled, briefly tried to imagine what the expression might do to the angry lines cutting through his rugged features.

Her head was pounding, thanks to the blond man treating it like a sandbox, and she didn’t have the energy to make any wisecracks.

“So what’s it going to be?”

“The Hokage seems to think you can be trusted,” he answered flatly. “You’ll be allowed to stay.”

“I’ll need to apologize to your friend then,” she said with a wry smile. Maybe she’d buy him a nice bottle of whiskey.

“There are conditions,” he went on, ignoring her.

 _Of course there are._ Nothing in the world was free, after all.

But the conditions were surprisingly few: a probationary period, wherein she’d be confined to the village proper for a minimum of thirty days; an ANBU shadowing her for that entire time; and the inability to take on paid missions until the probation was over.

She would also be responsible for meeting with her interrogator and the blond man, Inoichi, for continuous “evaluations”.

All in all, a relatively long leash with a comfortable collar, and Kaiyō hummed quietly, considering it.

“Fine.” She finally nodded in agreement, then shook her chained wrists behind her. “Any chance we can lose these now?”

His answer was to stand and pull the cloth sack from one of the pockets of his coat.

“If you’re going to keep this kinky shit up, you could’ve at least bought me dinner first,” she drawled, lazily raising her chin to look him in the eyes.

His expression didn’t change as he stepped around the table toward her, and then the sack went over her head and his stony face was gone.

A moment later though, the weight pulling her hands toward the floor disappeared, and a hand closed around her bicep and pulled her from the chair to her feet.

More stop and go as Kaiyō was walked through the building again, and after a minute or two, they were outside.

Suddenly an iron band — no, just a thickly muscled arm — curled around her ribs and yanked her back, her shoulders flat against a large, hard body, and before she could open her mouth to protest, she felt her feet leave the ground in a Shunshin.

Less than a second later she was released, the sack pulled abruptly from over her head.

Kaiyō blinked in the sudden sunlight as her cuffs were removed, and when she turned in her interrogator’s direction he took a step back, holding out her wakizashi and tantō in one hand and her holsters of kunai in the other.

“ANBU shadow, huh?” she asked, taking her weapons one at a time and re-arming herself. “And that’s twenty-four seven, I’m guessing?”

“That’s right.”

 _Hmm...._ She shrugged after a moment. “So how are these evaluation meetings going to work then?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Alright…” Kaiyo waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime, don’t do anything fucking stupid,” he snarled, and then disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

“File that one under ‘well, duh’,” she muttered, shaking her head.

Then it was time to start exploring.

* * *

Deciding after a short while that Konohagakure was too damned big, and too damned _hot_ Kaiyō Shunshin’ed to the highest rooftop she could see.

“Alright,” she called, putting her hands on her hips. “If you’re going to stalk me, the least you can do is help me out.”

There was nothing but the wind in response, and she sighed loudly.

“Look, I love sleeping in trees as much as the next ninja, but if you could just point me in the direction of an inn, or hell, even some tavern that rents rooms, then I swear: I’ll make this job as easy as possible for you.”

The cat-masked ANBU appeared in a puff of smoke about five meters to her right. “You talk too much.”

Kaiyō laughed out loud. “I’ve heard that a time or two, Neko-san.”

He pointed west, where the sun was heading for the horizon. “There’s an inn five blocks that way.”

“Much appreciated.” She nodded to the sword handle poking out from behind the masked ninja’s back. “You know how to use that thing?”

The blade flashed in the sun as it was drawn and pointed at her. “Try me and find out.”

“Heyyy now.” She raised her empty hands with palms out, grinning widely. “You can put away your claw, kitty cat. I was just curious.”

“Call me kitty cat again and this claw will be the last thing you ever see.”

Kaiyō rolled her eyes. “You Leaf shinobi sure like to make threats that you have no authority to carry out.”

Which reminded her....

“And what’s up with Mr. Personality back there?”

The cat mask stared impassively as the ninjatō was sheathed once more.

“Your genius interrogator?” She traced a fingertip from the end of her eyebrow down her cheek to her lips, indicative of his scar. “You know: tall, dark, wants to be terrifying?”

Now there was a snort of laughter. “Ibiki? What about it?”

 _Ibiki._ So that was his name.

Kaiyō had known the man by description only. Those scars, along with the sheer size of him, had been tell-tale enough, and the reputation of the man behind them: Konoha’s most feared and brilliant interrogator, had gone far over the last several years, far enough even to reach her and Zabuza even as they’d lain low.

She shook her head — “Nothing. Thanks for the tip on the inn.” — and touched two fingers to her headband in a salute before starting to leap from roof to roof, heading west.

* * *

The inn was nice, but what was even better: there was a bar next door.

Kaiyō received the key to her room and pocketed immediately before walking over to where the whiskey was waiting for her.

Scanning the bar’s interior upon entry was a force of habit, and she noted two exits, as well as a wall of windows, as potential entry and escape routes.

Especially since there was a handful of shinobi in green flak vests seated around a table in a far corner.

She stayed half-turned toward them as she ordered and received her drink: a single finger of whiskey, neat, and she took it to the opposite end of the bar where she could sit with her back to the wall and have a view of the entire establishment.

 _Five on one might be enough to get the blood pumping_ , she mused, and sizing them up was also out of habit.

Dimly, Kaiyō wondered if she ought to even be drinking right now, as squirrelly and sad and she was feeling.

_Probably not, but…_

_… Fuck it._

She raised the glass in Zabuza’s memory and growled softly, “This one’s for you, love,” before finishing it in one swallow and baring her teeth at the burn in her chest that followed.

The bartender stepped up, nodding at her empty. “Another?”

“Please.”

Whiskey number two went down a little slower — she was keeping an eye on the table of ninja across the room.

The five of them left halfway through whiskey number three.

Kaiyō stopped counting after number four.

* * *

She didn’t remember putting her head down on the bar, and it snapped up automatically when she felt someone put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t _fucking_ touch —”

Cue the spins.

“Fucking _hell_ ,” she moaned pitifully, squeezing her eyes closed and bringing her face back down to her folded arms, vaguely surprised to feel wetness on her cheeks.

She was… crying? She wasn’t sure, and her voice was muffled against her forearm. “Go away, whoever you are.”

Alternatively, they were more than welcome to shove a blade in her neck. In less than a minute she would be in shock; two would have her unconscious, and after that? Well, after that she would be with Zabuza again.

And hell, she had more than enough metal on her to make it easy for them. She even considered reaching for the sheath against her ribs to pass the stranger her tantō.

“How about I just sit here quietly instead?” asked a gentle, male voice, and she raised her head slowly before turning to look at the speaker.

Kaiyō’s mouth fell open at the sight of the blond, pony-tailed shinobi from the interrogation room. “You!”

Inoichi gave her a small, sad smile. “Hello, Kaiyō.”


	3. Chapter 3

Yamanaka Inoichi did not, by any means, consider himself an unintelligent man.

He was a jounin, for one, and he had taught enough genin that were still living, still fighting, to know that he was more than capable of passing on sound advice for life both on the battlefield and off.

Hell, he was best friends with a certified genius, and he kept up pretty well with Shikaku, if he was honest with himself.

With that being said, however, Inoichi was acutely aware that this could very well be one of the dumbest things he'd ever done.

But he couldn't help himself  —  when he’d felt the chakra signature of the little kunoichi he'd mind-walked earlier that afternoon come into his sensing range outside of the flower shop, Inoichi's heart had clenched in his chest.

The sheer amount of  _ pain  _ he'd felt in her mind, along with the jagged pieces lodged where her heart should have been... and all of it had been hidden behind deviously bright blue eyes and a laughing smile.

And yes, maybe on some level Kaiyō had reminded him of his daughter, or more accurately, the renegade had made him think about where Ino could end up ten years from now.

Inoichi would want someone to give  _ her _ a chance.

Which was why, hours later, long after the sun had gone down and he finally couldn't take it for one single minute longer, Inoichi headed in the direction of that stationary chakra signature, walking out of his home and feeling the pull get stronger with every step he took.

He followed it to a bar a few streets over, and pausing outside the door, he considered the ramifications of what he was about to do.

One of his former students was going to be pissed, most assuredly.

And if anyone could throw a coronary at only twenty-seven, it was Morino Ibiki.

But no  —  no, he had to  —  Inoichi had seen the dark tendrils winding around her mindscape. He'd heard the whispers in his own ears when his consciousness had merged with hers, and he'd felt the pull toward Death's abyss as they'd stood on the edge and stared into the black below.

If Kaiyō jumped now, it would be on him.

And that  _ shouldn't  _ bother him... but it did. It bothered Inoichi much more deeply than he cared to admit, as a matter of fact.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up  —  he could already feel traces of Killing Intent at the threshold as he walked into the large room, and he spotted Kaiyō in the back corner, at the end of the bar with her head down, face buried in her folded arms and one hand curled around a short and squat glass.

Inoichi realized there was nobody within over five meters of her when the bartender waved him down to the other end of the bar.

"What can I get you, shinobi-san?"

"Actually I'm here for my... associate." Inoichi nodded in the direction of the younger woman. "Any particular reason you haven't cut her off?

"Oh, I have," the bartender answered. "She just doesn't know it yet. She's had her head down for about twenty minutes now, since finishing that one. I just don't want to lose a hand trying to take it from her."

Inoichi opened his mouth to scoff, until he abruptly realized that the result was... entirely possible, actually. 

"How many has she had?"

"Gotta be seven by now."

_ Lovely.  _ The jounin sighed, shaking his head, and pulled a few bills from the pocket of his flak vest. "That should be more than enough to cover it. Sorry for the trouble."

"No trouble at all. Thank you very much."

Inoichi felt the Killing Intent thickening as he crossed the room, the menacing energy becoming almost tangible as he leaned against the bar beside her.

He wasn't surprised she'd managed to get under Ibiki's defenses  —  he'd felt what Kaiyō was capable of unleashing during the mind-walk  —  and even now, with her all but unconscious, every base instinct he had was screaming for him to run,  _ run _ , and the large muscles in his legs were full of adrenaline in preparation of carrying out that plan post-haste.

It was sheer will keeping him in his current position, and just in case, he palmed a kunai with his right hand before reaching out with his left to place his palm on her shoulder.

Kaiyō's head snapped up immediately. "Don't fucking touch  —  "

Then she closed her eyes tightly, her snarled words becoming a pained moan of "Fucking hell..." and she brought her face back down to her arms to mumble, "Go away, whoever you are."

_ Not a chance. _ For better or worse, Inoichi was invested. "How about I just sit here quietly instead?" he asked gently.

Slowly, her head lifted again, and then she turned, tipping her chin up to look him in the face. 

Those blue eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped. "You!"

_ Me.  _ Inoichi smiled down at her. "Hello, Kaiyō."

Abruptly, her surprise shifted, and now she looked at him with suspicion, sitting back slightly and leaning away from him. "What d'you want?"

_ I want to save you from yourself.  _ "I want to talk to you."

"So start talking," she slurred, gesturing between them with her glass before bringing it to her mouth, frowning at it upon the realization it was empty. "... Fuck."

"Do you need a place to stay tonight?" Inoichi asked quickly, before she could raise the empty in the bartender's direction.  _ And please, do not tell me you've picked out a nice tree.  _ She was liable to fall out of it and break something, in her current inebriated state.

Kaiyō snorted, glancing sideways at him. "You're not really my type."

Inoichi smiled in spite of himself. "You know that's not what I meant."

She shrugged in response. "I got a room next door."

"Good, that's good. How about we get you over there?"

"Meh..." She appeared to consider it, then shrugged again, setting the glass down on the bar. "Fine. But I gotta settle my tab."

"I took care of it already."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why would you do that?"

"To save the bartender from an early grave," he answered patiently. "In case you haven't noticed, you're practically smoking this place out with Killing Intent."

"Oh, am I?" Kaiyō closed her eyes, opening them after a long moment and frowning. "I can't... I can't turn it off...." She tried again with no success, and now Inoichi could see fear creeping into her expression as she exhaled shakily and whispered, "What the fuck?"

_ Time to go. _

He stood up straight, taking a step back so that she could move freely. "Come on, let's get you next door."

She twisted around, slipping forward off the stool to her feet, and her knees immediately buckled.

Inoichi almost,  _ almost _ , reached for her as she fell, before he remembered that she couldn't bear to be touched by anyone that wasn't Zabuza or Kisame.

So instead he watched her hit the floor and let out a small, startled yelp, and when she looked around in confusion, that was when he offered his hand.

"Hngh, this is... not good," Kaiyō mumbled, reaching out and taking it. "Not... good."

_ Yeah, it always kicks in when you stand up.  _ "You can lean on me, if you want," he said, pulling her easily to her feet and releasing her hand. "You don't have to, though."

She was weaving on her feet, and Inoichi watched her face as she gave him a wary once-over, then nodded. "... Alright."

* * *

Kaiyō felt as if she was standing on the surface of the ocean she'd been named for, and in the middle of a squall at that, as she stared at Inoichi.

She shook her head once, and then again  —  her vision had started to fuzz in and out  —  and she watched as the blond stepped slowly and deliberately up to her side.

On a very, very deep level of her mind  —  one that was just a little more sober than the rest  —  she knew the only reason she could tolerate the older man's arm around her was precisely  _ because _ she was as drunk as she was.

They made it out of the bar, and Kaiyō raised her head to look up at the night sky.

"Ooh," she said softly. "I was in there for a  _ while _ ."

"Were you now?" Inoichi answered pleasantly.

"Yeah...." There was a tingling along her jawline, and she stopped in her tracks, swallowing. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh?" 

"I think  —  " More tingling, another swallow. "I think I'm gonna  —  " Her stomach clenched  —  _ Yep. _ "Fuck!"

She shoved herself away from him, stumbling into the alley between the bar and the inn to be sick, coughing between heaves as the whiskey burned almost as much coming back up as it had going down, making her eyes water and her nose run.

"Feel any better?" Inoichi asked when she'd straightened, slinking out of the alley with her head down.

"Not really," she mumbled, sniffling, and he made a sympathetic noise and raised his arm.

Leaning on him again, they made it up to her room, and Kaiyō fished her room key out of her pocket and passed it to him.

She was thinking he might not be so bad, mind tricks aside, as he unlocked the door and guided her to the bathroom, leaving the lights off, and waited patiently for her to rinse her mouth out before gently taking her arm and steering her to the bed.

"Hold on." Kaiyō reached for the belt keeping her wakizashi in place at the small of her back, fumbling with it, letting out a snarl of frustration when it wouldn't release.

"Let me." Inoichi reached forward and she let her hands fall away, allowing him to make quick work of the clasp with long, deft fingers and lay the blade at the foot of the other bed in the room. "And the rest?"

Silently, she raised her arms and settled her clasped hands atop her head, allowing him to disarm her completely by removing her chest harness holding her tanto, along with the holsters of kunai on her thigh. 

And maybe it was the idea of sleeping in an actual bed again, with pillows and fresh sheets after several days of resting in trees or on the ground, or maybe it was just the alcohol, but suddenly Kaiyō was  _ tired _ , and her jaw cracked as she yawned widely.

"Lay down?" Inoichi suggested gently. "You look about ready to fall over."

She nodded, settling onto the bed with her back against the pillows, and to her surprise her escort sat down as well, cross-legged at her feet with his elbows on his knees as he looked over at her.

"... Why are you being so nice to me?" Kaiyō asked after a brief moment of hesitation, acutely aware that her voice was uncharacteristically soft and uncertain as she ducked her head, half-afraid of what his answer might be. 

"Because I know you feel, Kaiyō." Inoichi held up a hand as she frowned and opened her mouth, and he touched his temple with his index finger. "I've been in here, remember?"

She went silent. He'd knocked her out at the beginning of his jutsu, and she didn't know what he had or hadn't seen inside her mind.

“You’re in a lot of pain,” he said quietly. “And you smile and you joke and you laugh because if you aren’t laughing, you’re crying, both inside and out.”

_ Oh, no. _

_ No, no, no. _

Kaiyō didn’t want to hear it, not out loud  — it was bad enough banging around inside her skull all hours of the day and night.

And Inoichi’s voice was so godsdamned  _ sad _ as he kept talking.

“You don’t care in the slightest if you wake up tomorrow. You certainly didn’t care if Ibiki, or hell, even me for that matter, decided you weren’t worth the hassle and opened up an artery or two, did you?”

Her throat tightened painfully, and she shook her head. No, she hadn’t. Part of her had even expected it, while another had secretly  _ hoped _ for it, if only to set her free from the constant ache.

“You just want the pain to stop.”

_ Yes. _

_ Gods, yes.  _ She wanted the pain to stop, to _end_.

But more than that, more than anything else….

“I want him  _ back _ ,” Kaiyō whispered, and hearing herself say it was enough to break her.

She wrapped her arms around herself and started sobbing like a child, because Zabuza wasn’t coming back, not ever. Her Demon was gone and he’d left her all alone, after he’d promised her he never would.

She could see him in her mind: flashing his pointed teeth in a confident grin before winding the bandages around his neck and the lower half of his face, and the only thing she could think about was that she would never feel those teeth nipping gently at her bottom lip, or any other part of her body, ever again.

The man at the foot of her bed shifted his position, and then there was an arm settling around her shoulders and drawing her in close.

Kaiyō was entirely too far gone to care about being touched at that point, and she turned toward him and buried her face in the collar of his flak vest, clinging to him as she cried, her tears flowing like a river and soaking into the fabric beneath her cheek.

“Shhh…” Inoichi rested his chin atop her head and held her a little tighter. “I’m not going to tell you it’s alright, because it’s not. And I know — it hurts more than anything, and it feels like it will never end, but it will. Eventually it will, that much I can promise you.”

He started to rock her gently, and as she continued to sob, her body jerking with the intensity of her grief, a part of her hated herself for showing so much weakness in front of a stranger.

Inoichi only took her breakdown in remarkable stride, still murmuring comforting things and holding her close, and after several minutes Kaiyō quieted and let gravity take over, her upper body slipping downward until her head rested on his thigh like a pillow, her forehead against his midsection.

He tucked her hair behind her ear and gently brushed away her tears, stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

“Now, listen to me,” he said softly. “You are not alone.”

She let out a whimper and threw an arm around his waist to pull herself closer, nuzzling into his haori, desperate to sustain the surprising amount of comfort his proximity was providing.

“Hey now….” Inoichi threaded his fingers through her shaggy hair and rubbed his thumb over her temple. “You are not alone, Kaiyō. Do you hear me?”

Trying, and failing, to stop her body from trembling anymore, she closed her eyes and exhaled shakily. “... I hear you.”

“Good. You’ve got me in your corner, so just remember that, alright?”

“Alright.” She sniffled as her eyes filled once again, overwhelmed by the amount of compassion he’d shown her, a complete and total stranger. “... Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now come on, you need to get some sleep.” He patted her head before slipping an arm under her to sit her up and guide her from his lap to the pillows at the head of the bed.

Kaiyō mumbled under her breath but allowed herself to be moved, and she heard Inoichi chuckle quietly as she relaxed into the pillows and let out a deep, sleepy sigh, fading into unconsciousness before he’d even made it out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That moment when you as the author realize: "holy shit, Kaiyō letting Inoichi disarm her is a _whole_ other type of intimacy" but your friggin' _character_ can't realize the same thing because she's drunk as _FUCK_
> 
> *frustrated writer noises*


End file.
